> The point is the Foundation is rich. Seventeen-plus months of operating runway in the bank.

I don't think "rich" is the correct way to describe this. It sounds like a lot of money but there are a lot of expenses and people to pay. Seventeen months sounds fragile - one long-ish recession and they're toast. I hope they survive.

They spend a ton of money on things unrelated to the website. The cost of running the website (including staff) is actually a very small piece of their budget. They could run Wikipedia basically forever on the interest from their money in the bank.

In the event of a recession they could easily scale spending down to match.

17 months of runway for the something with the scale and ambition of Wikipedia is living hand-to-mouth.

18-24 months is a typical runway for a healthy American startup. As a mature nonprofit with a very predictable revenue source, 17 months is well within reason. Runways get shorter as you scale and stabilize, not longer.